First long ride on my R1200RT... opinions

[motoguy128]

My wife and I did our first day trip on the new RT. We covered 430 miles over 13 hours including stops, 7.5 hours riding mostly backroads.

 

Here's what I discovered:

 

- The stock rider's seat sucks... as everyone has mentioned. It's marginally better than that on my R1150R, but not much. Combined with the upright riding position, my back was a little sore after several hours, despite focusing on good posture. An aftermerket saddle may be in my future.

 

- I'm 5-11" and found myself right inbetween seat positons. I ultimately was more comfortable in the high postion, but I defintely need to be more careful at low speeds since I'm no longer flat footed.

 

- with the seat in the high positon, I could use another 1/2"-1" of windscreen for freeway cruising. I might look at a a Cal sci windscreen. the reviews were pretty impressive.

 

- my wife was pretty comfortable and only late in the day did her butt start to get a little sore. SHe actually started to fall asleep a couple times.

 

- This motor is pretty sweet. With a lightly loaded topcase and passenger, it's a wheelie machine, when I get on it to make a pass. I got a couple small headshakes at full throttle in 3rd dancing the front wheel on the pavement making a pass at 60mph. Pretty cool. I was on hte somfort setting most of the time, so that also didn't help.

 

- The handling in sweepers and twisties is awesome. Very stable and responsive.

 

The best moment was when I came up on some older standard/crusier on a 2 lane road. I think it was Honda or Kawasaki, maybe a 750 or 900 with a pair of megaphone pipes and running pretty rich. We both came up on a slower car at the same time. AS trafic cleared the other way I put on my signal, and he did too... we both downshifted and I rolled on in 3rd gear and quickly had to roll off to avoid running in the back of him. I think he was a little suprised to see a touring bike, 2-up with luggage to be going that fast.

 

On a side note, ASC never did appear to kick in as the front end lifted a few inches off the ground.

[Twisties]

- The handling in sweepers and twisties is awesome. Very stable and responsive.

 

The best moment was when I came up on some older standard/crusier on a 2 lane road. I think it was Honda or Kawasaki, maybe a 750 or 900 with a pair of megaphone pipes and running pretty rich. We both came up on a slower car at the same time. AS trafic cleared the other way I put on my signal, and he did too... we both downshifted and I rolled on in 3rd gear and quickly had to roll off to avoid running in the back of him. I think he was a little suprised to see a touring bike, 2-up with luggage to be going that fast.

 

 

You got yourself a nice ride!